Friday, 30 March 2012

[HM:252277] World’s First Balanced Nutrition Pizza Wins Award

The world's first nutritionally balanced pizza was launched to trade this week at the Food & Drink Expo 2012 in Birmingham, where it won the Best New Idea award at the UK's largest F&D trade show.

Date:

Fri, 30 Mar 2012

Source:

Eat Balanced

Using the best ingredients and taking guidance from international nutrition expert Professor Mike Lean from the University of Glasgow, Eat Balanced have created the award winning product that mirrors the official UK guideline daily amounts for adults. Essentially, each pizza is a nutritionally balanced full meal.

But perhaps more importantly they have developed a range of pizzas that are as tasty as they are convenient. They're just like any other pizza – except they taste amazing and they will do you good. Clearly, these are a very long way from the "junk food" image of most other pizzas.

Perhaps ironically the nutritionally balanced pizza was born in Glasgow, the spiritual home of the deep fried pizza and other less and healthy culinary inventions.

As Eat Balanced's founder and MD, Donnie Maclean says "I was keen to try to help people from all walks of life to understand why a balanced diet is easier, and tastier, than they might think. Personally, I've always loved the convenience and the taste of pizzas and I was convinced that the junk food image wasn't the whole story.

"My task was to combine taste with convenience and health to produce something that would be nutritionally balanced but not make you feel like you grudged eating it because you knew it was the right thing to do.

"My vision came to life when I was introduced to Professor Mike Lean, a somewhat unconventional nutrition academic and clinician, who is happy to challenge the status quo. Together we've developed Eat Balanced pizzas. Nutritionally they are the world's first balanced pizza. But when it comes to eating and sharing round the kitchen table, all that matters is that they are the tastiest, most natural pizzas we could make.

'We've had a lot of interest from the food services sector and so that's why we chose Food & Drink Expo to launch the pizzas to the trade. This is a discriminating audience, and a hugely competitive space, but we're confident that on health and customer satisfaction grounds they'll see the value of the balanced way.'

Professor Mike Lean, Head of Human Nutrition at The University of Glasgow, and one of the world's leading nutritional scientists said, 'I've always believed that nutrition is a question of balance and not about demonising particular foods. Working with Donnie to bring the pizza back from junk food status and return it to its nutritionally sound origins has been a technical challenge, but we've had great fun! Pizza has its origins in the Mediterranean peasant diet, traditionally one of the world's healthiest. Bread, oil, herbs, tomatoes and only a little cheese. Getting back to those roots was key to achieving a balanced meal.

'Each of Eat Balanced pizzas contain about a third of the main nutrients recommended for an adult each day - all in the right proportions. But ultimately what matters is that people want to eat the balanced pizza. And after extensive, but not necessarily scientific research, with myself plus friends and family, I can formally conclude that this is an exceptionally tasty pizza. They taste every bit as good as any other traditionally made pizza, so why should anyone continue to buy or supply nutritionally unbalanced junk-pizzas? It deserves to be a success.'

Also commenting on this potentially game-changing new concept was Lucy Jones, the dietitian from the popular TV programme Food Hospital. "For most of us, eating foods in the right balance is key to good health. Our busy lifestyles mean this is a struggle for many. The guys at Eat Balanced have really cleverly provided a balanced meal in a convenient package."

Moira Howie, Nutrition Manager at Waitrose voted for the product and stated, "Just the sort of product innovation that the UK requires – and it tastes great too! Well done."

Eat Balanced pizzas will initially come in two flavours – cheese and tomato, ham and pineapple – with a third flavour currently in development.

The pizzas are being manufactured by a BRC Grade A company and will be competitively priced to corporate catering, sporting venues, hotels and many other food service locations.

More information:

Scotland Food & Drink support new and established companies is a wide range of ways, including through their Access to Markets and INSIGHTS programmes.